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The Swan Song of Spanish Socialism

By Jonathan Blitzer November 7, 2012 7:31 amNovember 7, 2012 7:31 am

Photo

Then Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero giving a speech in 2011. The Socialist Party were ousted in favor of the conservative Popular Party in the 2011 elections.Credit Daniel Ochoa De Olza/Associated Press

MADRID — Last month, Spain’s Socialist Party lost badly in regional elections in Galicia and the Basque country. Hand-wringing among the party faithful soon turned into finger-pointing and squabbles over a possible change of leadership. But even that papered over the deeper existential problem: What can the Socialists offer as a counterpoint to continued austerity?

This is an increasingly difficult question to answer, and not just in Spain. It has stumped the Socialist Party in Portugal and echoed, though in a different key, in France. Although Socialists won elections there back in May, President François Hollande is facing mounting discontent in part for not following through on his anti-austerity talk on the campaign trail.

The neoliberal tilt of the E.U. agenda is recalibrating how politics plays out across the Continent, shrinking the space in which left-of-center parties can chart an alternative course to austerity to combat worsening joblessness.

The dilemma is especially acute where the economic downturn is steepest, as in Spain. Although the ruling Popular Party is ever more reviled for its unrelenting budget cuts, the Socialists haven’t been able to make gains in its stead.

In part, this is because they face well-warranted public skepticism. They may be decrying the ravages of budget slashing today, but that’s just a rhetorical perk that comes with being in the opposition. No one has forgotten that it was the Socialists, under Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who began the fateful march toward austerity in 2010. The conservatives now in power have just taken those measures to their logical extreme.

The Socialists have suffered a string of defeats in the meantime. In Galicia last month, they lost 200,000 votes compared with the last election, mostly to abstention, which exceeded 36 percent. (Even though the region is ideologically conservative, this was a surprising thrashing.) They also lost 100,000 votes in the Basque country and their reins over the regional parliament.

Displacing them was a new separatist coalition called Bildu, which includes former members of the political wing of the terrorist group ETA. (Since ETA renounced violence last year, politicians once affiliated with the group are now free to participate in parliamentary politics.) Bildu’s electoral gains coincide with people’s dwindling faith in national solutions to worsening unemployment.

The outlook is also grim in Catalonia. The regional president, Artur Mas, has set early elections for later this month in the hope of consolidating his majority in anticipation of a showdown with Madrid over a referendum on regional independence. His heated rhetoric on the subject has driven a wedge among the Socialists: They’ve been oscillating between a conciliatory tone on independence and a sterner call for national unity in a time of crisis.

All told, these setbacks leave the Socialist Party in control of just two of the country’s 17 autonomous regions — Andalusia and Asturias. This means the Socialists govern 9.5 million people, or about 20 percent of the overall Spanish population.

Even before the current crisis broke out, the late British historian Tony Judt warned European social democrats of embarking on a tepid political course “without ideals.” The economic crisis has darkened that prognosis.

The very idea of government — namely what it can do for its citizens — has lost its luster. Instead of providing social services, governments are now resolutely cutting them — and depriving social democrats of their traditional calling card and leaving an already famished left starved for direction.